Blood Red Sky
by zenniel
Summary: What happens next will change the world... A new DRoP fic set after First Fall. T for later chapters.


(( Disclaimer~ I do not own any Anne McCaffrey things, only the characters and the general plotline are my idea. The story is set sometime in the second interval. ))

chapter 1: the passing

Morning couldn't come soon enough. To him, the days meshed into nights and the sevendays meshed into months. Everything faded in and out, and his existence felt like nothing, at least to him. Those were the types of dreams he had, the ones where he was a trundlebug, only able to move forward; straight lines were never his friends. Hands came to rest upon his eyes, massaging them as if massaging away a headache. There was no headache, just the deep black of the morning.

"Good morning, Gabrael!" Sarai's voice was particularly loud this morning as she peeked inside his door to find him awake. Was it so wonderful a morning? Gabrael didn't check, couldn't check, and didn't much care. "Ghanath's clutched, Gabrael~ there are thirty nice eggs on the Sands, and a Queen egg, too!"

Gabrael turned over onto his stomach with a moan, and felt his legs snare his bed furs. "Oh, alright, you've gotten me up, Sarai, you incessant happy person, you. Could you find me my boots?"

Sarai hurriedly did what he asked, talking all the way. The boy woke like this nearly every morning, and he was used to her chattering. Most of the time it faded into background noise. It was good background noise, as Sarai knew everything there was to know that went on around the Weyr. She filled him in each morning while she readied his clothes and whatnot. Once or twice she would ask questions that he just needed to answer such as, 'what color shirt do you want to wear today?' or 'do you need marks today?' The answers usually consisted of one or two words, rarely more than that. But Sarai didn't seem to notice. In fact, Gabrael rather liked to think that Sarai talked just to talk.

As Gabrael pulled off his nighttime trousers, he could hear Sarai rummaging around for his clothes. Shards, she probably knew where his clothes were more than he did, which probably should have disturbed him but didn't, since her presence helped him get dressed in the morning. "Here," Sarai said, pushing a shirt and some new trousers into his hand. He pulled the latter on first, completely used to Sarai being around while he dressed. "They're brown today, those trousers. And your shirt's white, so don't go getting anything on it." She said this as he pulled the shirt on, and fell silent as she watched him try to lace up his boots.

Finally, Gabrael gave up, much to Sarai's laughing. "You've been blind for _how long_, now? You still can't even tie your own laces!" Sarai joked, a joke that was becoming so commonplace that Gabrael waved it away. If anyone else were to joke, he would have tried to glare at them and probably wouldn't have spoken to them again. But Sarai was different just because she helped him nearly every day, and had since 'that day.'

"Hey, don't think about it. I'm sorry, okay?" Gabrael knew what Sarai meant by 'it.' Apparently, according to Sarai, he gained a far-off look whenever he thought about the day he lost his sight. The young man tried to smile, "Sorry, sorry." And he stood, stretched, and felt almost good enough to start his day.

* * *

"Can you believe it?" Cried Winayessa as soon as she jumped off of the Bronze's back. Winayessa had been lucky, the lucky one to ride on the Bronze's back. Ecco had been the one to ride on the Green's back. 'But,' Ecco thought, 'I guess we're both lucky to be Searched.' However, Winayessa would hold over her head for some time to come the fact that she got to ride on the Bronze and Ecco only rode on the Green.

"Well, can you?" Winayessa asked, prodding Ecco with a finger, almost sneering at her friend. "Wha—uh… believe what?" Ecco asked, pushing her blond hair behind her ears, only half listening. The Weyr was huge! She'd only lived at Keroon Hold most of her life, the only time she'd lived elsewhere being that time when her older brother had run away to Igen Hold and she had lived with him for some time. She was comparing the Hold with the Weyr, and she could rightfully say that the Weyr was about the biggest place she'd ever seen in her life.

Winayessa was still talking. "Can you believe we were both Searched, and at the same time, too!" Ecco blinked at her, wondering how to phrase what she wanted to say without hurting her friend's… well, no, that wasn't true. Ecco knew almost nothing could hurt Wina's feelings because she always turned it into something good for her, or, at least, ignored it. Ecco wasn't entirely sure if Wina took things to heart or not, because she'd never seen the girl cry over anything, not even spilt milk.

"Did you look at this place?" Ecco asked as they were shepherded to the candidate's barracks to put their small bags of belongings down. They were told that the hatching would be a while off and they could wait at the Hold if they wanted; Winayessa was the deciding factor (the only factor) that made Ecco leave. The other girl had wanted to go, so Ecco had gone with her. "What…?" Wina asked, glancing at her friend, momentarily sideswiped by her random question. "Oh, yeah, the Weyr is huge, but I've seen Weyrs before."

Ecco watched with some disgruntlement as Wina only shrugged where Ecco was dumbfounded. They found the candidate bunks easily enough ("Of _course_ I know where the candidate bunks are!" Said a slightly perturbed Wina) and set up their things. Before too long, the two were lying on Ecco's bunk, legs and heads hanging off opposite sides of the bed. "Whaddaya wanna do? The Candidatemaster said we have today off." Wina asked, rolling over onto her stomach.

"I'm hungry." Ecco declared, feeling her stomach grumble. She laughed and rolled over also. "Let's go find the kitchens and snag some bread or maybe some meat."

"Sounds like a plan!" Winayessa declared, and the two headed toward the kitchens.

* * *

"Can't believe it… they even had bubbly pies!" Wina declared as she held onto a bubbly pie with a hand that looked, for all intensive purposes, like a claw. Ecco had to smile at that, even as she took a bite of some bread she'd gotten. She hadn't taken any bubbly pies, but had instead taken another roll of bread. Now they both wandered the halls. It had been a good candlemark ago when they'd gotten their food. Both were savoring it, and Wina's mind was still stuck on the fact that bubbly pies had been available.

"Yeah, I couldn't believe it, either. But I guess that they were made on account of there being a clutch on the Sands now." Ecco said thoughtfully before biting into the bread piece again. They were walking slowly, too. People with actual things to do passed them. Ecco didn't really like being passed, because it made her feel like she wasn't doing anything, but Winayessa was walking slowly, so she would.

Suddenly, Winayessa stopped and stared. Ecco slowed down and stopped two steps ahead of her friend, turning to see what Wina was staring at. "He's blind!" Wina hissed, nudging Ecco in the ribs. Somehow the girl had ended up close enough to Ecco to nudge her. When Ecco looked, she saw that Winayessa had moved closer. "Ooooh, let's see if he really is blind, or if he's just playin' around." And Ecco groaned. Wina was a nice girl, really, but she could have her bad sides. Okay, so maybe she always had a bad side, it just didn't show like most people did.

"No, Wina, really, I don't want to disrupt his day." Ecco held back, her voice calm though she felt anger that Wina would even think about doing something so mean to the poor boy. But Winayessa was already off, and all Ecco could do was watch. The brunette walked straight past the girl who was happily chatting away at the blind man, and tried to run into him. "Oops, I'm sorr—ah!" She said, surprised that her shoulder hadn't collided with his. The chatty girl hadn't broken stride or voice at all, apparently used to this sort of thing. The boy had stopped walking and had waited calmly while Wina passed harmlessly by. Ecco covered her laughter with a hand, though it was ill-concealed.

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you there; did you trip?" The boy asked, and Ecco could see the sides of his mouth turn upward in what could have been the beginning of a smile. Clever kid, he probably knew this was going to happen. Winayessa, having stumbled, tried to bring herself back up to her former glory. "I, uh, I wasn't watching where I was, uh, going." She managed to say, which was ironic, since the guy was _blind_ and he was watching where he was going a whole lot more than she had known. But he waved off the irony with a friendly hand, "That's okay, people don't normally see me. Watch out next time, okay?" He offered her a smile and then turned to look, wait, was he trying to find Ecco? That was impossible, he shouldn't have known where she was. He was looking about two feet to the left of where she stood, but his look was unmistakable. And Ecco grinned, so he _was_ playing!

"Maybe I'll see you again sometime?" The man asked, more to Ecco, she realized, than to Winayessa, though he had turned halfway back to the brunette. Winayessa fumed, but managed to keep her voice composed as she said, "Yeah, sure." He nodded shortly and then started walking again. The chatty woman resumed her monologue and Wina stared angrily at their backs as they retreated down the hall. If her gaze was Thread, then the whole hallway would probably have been dead in seconds. When the blind man and his friend rounded a corner, Wina turned back to Ecco, and Ecco had to fight to keep her cool. "Did you _see_ him?" Wina practically jeered, to which Ecco had to answer: "Yes, and I think he _saw_ you coming."

* * *

(( Hey, guys! It's Zen here with my first fanfic! I'd love reviews, both good and bad, and, hey, I'd just love comments, as well! ))


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